Throwing Fits, the popular NYC-based critic duo, knows how to dig deep enough to reach true fashion fascination. The pair have teamed up with GANT to curate an exhibition showcasing the best pieces from the American brand’s vast archive.
Behind the Throwing Fits name lie fashion fanatics and self-proclaimed “dirtbags just tryna navigate the male zeitgeist” Lawrence Schlossman and James Harris. The pair met in 2011 while working together at a fashion PR agency and immediately clicked. They started posting memes, opinions, and news on Instagram, quickly attracting a devoted audience, and launched a weekly podcast in 2020, interviewing guests including Jonah Hill and George Russell. Their latest project — tackling the vast archive of GANT, one of the great symbols of Americana — was far from an easy task. But they’re skilled zeitgeist navigators and die-hard fashion buffs, after all, so their nerd factor propelled them forward.
“The gem of the GANT archive for us was seeing the plethora of private label shirts that GANT was pumping out for everyone from Paul Stuart and The Yale Co-op, to a store called Hamburger’s, for some reason,” Schlossman shares. The duo dug through the brand’s vast back catalog to find the most compelling and emblematic pieces, guided by the brand’s creative director Christopher Bastin. “Christopher is legit Yoda. Nobody is more knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the product than this dude,” Harris tells.
For Bastin, the exhibition is the culmination of years of curation of the brand’s archive — which didn’t even exist until he was appointed as creative director. “When I joined GANT in 2005, I realized there was absolutely nothing in our records from the first 30 years, so I started to piece together an entirely new brand archive,” he shares. “Today, the GANT Archive contains thousands of pieces that represent our history, from 1949 to the present day,” he adds.
The exhibition will also be soundtracked by an interview with one of the founders, Marty Gant, taking visitors on a journey back to the ‘50s. Founded in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1949, GANT was started by Marty Gant, his brother Elliot, and their father Bernard as a purveyor of fine shirts and wardrobe essentials. The GANT brand quickly grew in popularity and established itself as the leading supplier of the ‘Ivy League Look’, thanks to its appeal to New Haven’s wealthy and discerning crowd of Yale University students, faculty, and alumni.
The brand reentered the US market in 2022 and will be marking its return with the opening of the GANT New York Studio space. The Archive Exhibition will be the first event in the new locale, which will house exhibitions, events, and panel discussions and showcase new collections. The exhibition will be open to the public from February 23 to 26 at the space on 240 Mulberry Street, in the heart of NYC’s Nolita neighborhood, before moving to London and Paris. In London, it will be curated by Samuel Trotman @samutaro, and in Paris, by Manuel Schenck, with dates for both cities to be confirmed later in the Spring.
Learn more about the GANT Archive Exhibition, and the brand in general, at GANT.com.
